ERIC EJ753090: Relationships between Selected Demographic Variables and Employee Work Ethics as Perceived by Supervisors

2004·0.12 MB·English

by  ERIC

JITE Volume 41, Number 1 - Relationships Between Selected Demographic Variables and Employee Work Ethics as... Page 1 of 12
Digital Library & Archives ETDs ImageBase Ejournals News EReserve Special Collections

Current Editor:
Janet Z [email protected]
Spring 2004 Volume 41, Number 1
DLA Ejournal Home | JITE Home | Table of Contents for this issue | Search JITE and other ejournals
Relationships Between Selected Demographic Variables and Employee
Work Ethics as Perceived by Supervisors
Paul E. Brauchle
Md. Shafiqul Azam
Illinois State University
"Work ethic" is a cultural norm that advocates being personally accountable and
responsible for the work that one does. It is based on a belief that work has intrinsic value to
the individual (Cherington, 1980; Yankelovich & Immerwahr, 1984). The concept of "work
ethic" relates to the desirable work attitudes, values, and habits expected from employees.
Positive work attitudes are attributes that are desired from every employed person, from the
lowest level of employees to the CEO of the organization.
It has been said that it is more important to keep a job than to obtain a job. To obtain a
job, positive work attitudes may or may not be necessary; but to keep a job, positive work
attitudes are essential. For example, Beach (1982) cited research indicating that fully 87% of
persons losing their job or failing to be promoted were found to have "improper work habits
and attitudes rather than insufficient job skills or knowledge" (p. 69).
One trend in the labor force has been the increase of information age jobs that are high-
discretion positions that require considerable thinking and decision-making on the part of
workers (Miller, 1986). This is in contrast to more traditional industrial age jobs that tend to
require obedience rather than decision-making skills (Azam, 2002). Because of the large
http://scholar.lib.vt.edu/ejournals/JITE/v41n1/brauchle.html 2/20/2007
JITE Volume 41, Number 1 - Relationships Between Selected Demographic Variables and Employee Work Ethics as... Page 2 of 12
impact that these information age workers have on the organization, positive work
attitudes may be more important than ever before.
Moreover, the United States may be termed as a country of immigrants. These
immigrants have brought diverse cultural attitudes, social norms and beliefs to the workplace.
The problems of U.S. employers are thus far more complex than those of employers in other
industrialized countries where most of the work force is homogeneous. For this reason, an
understanding of the status of work attitudes in the contemporary workplace is essential.
Differences in work attitude across demographic variables such as gender, age, education, and
length of employment may provide important information that would be of value to schools
and other workforce development programs, and may help in the design of programs, both in
educational institutions and in the workplace, that are conducive to enhancing positive work
attitudes in the labor force.
Research investigations on the effects of demographic variables such as gender, age, level
of education, and length of full-time employment on occupational work ethic have been
reported in the literature with differing results. A number of studies in the past 20 years
reported that females are more likely to exhibit better work attitudes than their male
counterparts (Azam, 2002; Petty & Hill, 1994; Hill, 1997; Hall, 1990, 1991; Furnham &
Muhiudeen, 1984; Wollack, Goodale, Witjing, & Smith, 1971), while others found no
correlation at all between gender and work ethic (Tang, 1989). Petty (1995) found significant
differences in work ethic for the age group 36-55 years from the five age groups studied.
Some researchers found positive relationships (Wollack, et al., 1971; Goodale, 1973), while
others found no relationship (Aldag & Brief, 1975; Buchholz, 1978; MacDonald, 1972) or
negative relationships (Tang & Tzeng, 1992) between education and work attitudes. In a
recent study, Boatwright and Slate (2000) obtained stronger work ethic values for females,
persons aged 20-24 years, and college students than others.
Work attitudes can be measured by administering an appropriate standardized instrument
to the employee. However, in an actual workplace the supervisor, rather than the employee, is
usually the rater. A supervisor's rating of an employee's work attitudes seems intuitively to
have value because employee attitudes manifested in the working environment are more
visible to the supervisor than to the employee, and supervisor opinions have greater ecological
veracity (Pinneau & Milton, 1958) than self-ratings. The previously mentioned studies had one
characteristic in common: they measured self-rated work attitudes. For this study, responses
were obtained from supervisors regarding information and noninformation employees that
they supervised. The Occupational Work Ethic Inventory (OWEI) (Petty, 1995) was used to
obtain data.
Information employees are employees who perform information jobs. An information job
is one which is characterized by the following: (a) comprehensive, open-ended tasks requiring
high responsibility and critical thinking; (b) tasks which need little supervision and require
active individual initiative; (c) tasks that require creative solutions to nonroutine situations
with deviations handled by the lowest level of specialist; (d) continued improvement of
performance being as important as completing tasks; and (e) integrated work processes and
increased ownership of product and process by the individual (Law, Knuth, & Bergman,
1992).
Noninformation employees are those who perform non-information jobs. A
noninformation job is characterized by (a) narrowly defined tasks that require minor
responsibility, (b) heavy supervision and passive order taking, (c) specific response to a
limited number of possible problems with deviations from the norm handled by specialists, (d)
task completion being more important than continued improvement of performance, and (e)
specific tasks being independent of the purpose of the organization's overall operation (Law, et
al., 1992).
http://scholar.lib.vt.edu/ejournals/JITE/v41n1/brauchle.html 2/20/2007
JITE Volume 41, Number 1 - Relationships Between Selected Demographic Variables and Employee Work Ethics as... Page 3 of 12
Purpose
This study investigated the relationships between demographic variables (i.e., gender,
age, level of education, and length of full-time employment) and manufacturing employees'
work attitudes as rated by their supervisors. The following questions were investigated.
1. What is the relationship between the demographic variables of gender, age, level of
education, and length of full-time employment and work attitudes of information
employees when their supervisors rated the employees' work attitudes?
2. What is the relationship between the demographic variables of gender, age, level of
education, and length of full-time employment and work attitudes of noninformation
employees when their supervisors rated the employees' work attitudes?
Methodology
The data for this study were derived from the supervisors of information and
noninformation employees of six randomly selected manufacturing industries in the central
Illinois area. Supervisor perceptions of work attitudes of these employees were recorded using
the OWEI. The OWEI has been found to be a highly reliable instrument with recorded
Cronbach's coefficient alphas above 0.90 for different groups of participants (Hill, 1992; Petty,
1995; Hatcher, 1995). For this study, the OWEI was used without modification to collect
responses from the employees. A slightly modified OWEI was used to collect responses from
the supervisors.
In regression analysis, it is very important to maintain a large number of degrees of
freedom; and degrees of freedom are lost as the number of variable increases (Korth, 1975).
Because the number of dependent variables was very large (50), the degrees of freedom
available were very small, making the result of a multiple regression analysis difficult to
interpret. Moreover, the instrument items (based on employee responses) were found to be
highly correlated, which may lead to a spurious interpretation. In view of this, and because the
type and the location of the population of the present study were different from previous factor
analytic studies on the OWEI, an exploratory factor analysis was conducted to identify the
factors represented by the 50 OWEI items for the respondents in this study. The analysis was
conducted by using responses from both information and noninformation employees, as well
as supervisors (Brauchle & Azam, 2003).
Using the SPSS 10 data reduction technique, a principal component analysis (PCA) was
used to analyze the dimensionality of the 50-item OWEI. Semantic analysis enabled the
factors to be identified as follows: Teamwork, Dependability, Ambition, and Self-Control.
Because of the complexity of obtaining regression-based factor scores for supervisor
responses, factor scores were computed by a simple but effective method mentioned by
Kerlinger (1973). For this study, a loading of 0.45, which represents 20% of the variance, was
used to include a variable in the definition of a factor. Using this rule, 20 items loaded on the
factor Ambition, 16 on the factor Teamwork, 12 on the factor Dependability, and 8 on the
factor Self-Control. These four factors accounted for 55.53% of total variance.
The factor Teamwork represents those items of OWEI on which a higher score may
indicate that a person is more comfortable in a team environment than those with lower scores.
The factor Dependability represents those items of OWEI where a higher score may indicate
that a person is more dependable in the workplace than a person with a lower score. The factor
Ambition represents those items of OWEI on which a higher score may indicate a more
ambitious person than one who has a lower score. The factor Self-Control represents those
items of OWEI where a higher score may indicate a person's greater self-control capability
than a person having a lower score. These variables and their values were used in the multiple
regression analysis.
http://scholar.lib.vt.edu/ejournals/JITE/v41n1/brauchle.html 2/20/2007
JITE Volume 41, Number 1 - Relationships Between Selected Demographic Variables and Employee Work Ethics as... Page 4 of 12
In this study, 205 supervisors' responses on information employee work attitudes and 146
supervisors' responses on noninformation employee work attitudes were used. The sizes of the
samples were found to be more than adequate according to a prior power analysis conducted
by Azam (2002) with a target power of 0.8 and four independent variables (age, gender, level
of education, and length of employment). In that analysis, a sample size of 112 was found to
be adequate to conduct a multiple regression analysis.
The four factors (Teamwork, Dependability, Ambition, and Self-Control) obtained by
Brauchle & Azam (2003) through a principal component factor analysis based on combined
employee and supervisor responses on the OWEI were used as dependent variables. The
demographic factors were gender (two levels: male and female), age (five levels; 19 or under,
20-26, 27-35, 36-55, over 55 years), level of education (five levels: less than high school
diploma, high school degree or GED, two years of college or associate's degree, a bachelor's
degree, some graduate work), and length of full-time employment (three levels: less than two
years, two to eight years, more than eight years). These were used as independent or predictor
variables. The levels of the independent categorical variables were coded as binary coded
placeholder variables with an acceptable value of 0 or 1. For example, if a respondent
indicated 27-35 years under demographic age, then the level 27-35 years was coded to 1 and
the other four levels were coded to 0.
For supervisor responses (n = 205) on information employees, transformed (square root
transformation) scores were used. The unacceptable negative skewness was converted to
positive skewness by subtracting each value from the largest score in that distribution + 1. For
example, if the value of a particular score was 50 and the largest score in the distribution 60,
then the modified score was (60+1) - 50 = 11. These positively skewed distributions were then
subjected to square root transformations as suggested by Tabachnick & Fidell (1983). With
transformed scores and outliers not removed, both skewness and kurtosis were found to be
within acceptable limits; and each of the four dependent variable distributions passed the
Kolmogorov-Smirnov test of normality.
For supervisor responses (n = 146) on noninformation employees, untransformed scores
were used. With untransformed scores and outliers not removed, both skewness and kurtosis
were found to be within acceptable limits. Each of the four dependent variable distributions
passed the normality test.
A fixed-effect regression analysis model with a random sampling plan (numbers of
participants in different levels of an independent variable were not same) was used for data
analysis. Sets of independent variables were entered in terms of causal priority in an order
such that no variable was likely to be causally affected by one that appears after it. The order
of assumed causal priority was gender, level of education, age, and years of full-time work
experience. Using this order, level of education should not affect gender; age should not affect
level of education (e.g., being older is not necessarily associated with having a higher level of
education; but having more education does require the expenditure of time, which would make
the employee older); and years of full-time work experience should not affect age.
The regression analysis was conducted to predict the work attitudes measured by each of
the four factors (i.e., Ambition, Teamwork, Dependability, and Self-Control) from the variables
gender, level of education over and above gender, age over and above gender and level of
education, and years of full-time work experience over and above gender, level of education,
and age.
Results
Cohen and Cohen (1983) suggested a formula to calculate effect size in hierarchical
regression. The formula is as follows.
http://scholar.lib.vt.edu/ejournals/JITE/v41n1/brauchle.html 2/20/2007
JITE Volume 41, Number 1 - Relationships Between Selected Demographic Variables and Employee Work Ethics as... Page 5 of 12
f2 = R2 - R2 /1- R2
Y.AB Y.A Y.AB
where
f2 = effect size
R2 = Y variance accounted for by variables A
Y.A
R2 = Y variance accounted for by variables A and B.
Y.AB
The numerator of the above formula represents the increment in Y variance when a set of
2
variables B is added to a set of variables A (R -Change). The denominator represents the Y
variation accounted for by neither A nor B and designated by Cohen and Cohen (1983) as
Model I error. Here Y represents dependent variable, and A, B represents sets of independent
variables. R2s used in this analysis were not corrected for shrinkage.
Several significant F changes for different combinations of independent variables and the
four dependent variables with supervisor responses on information and noninformation
employee work attitudes were obtained. Table 1 indicates the statistically significant
relationships obtained between the demographic variables of gender, level of education, age,
and length of full-time employment and the four factors of the OWEI, Ambition, Teamwork,
Dependability, and Self-Control. As can be seen in Table 1, significant relationships occurred
among three of the demographic variables: gender, level of education, and length of full-time
employment. Length of full-time employment was the only variable for which significant
relationships occurred across all of the OWEI factors, and this occurred only for information
employees. All but one of the significant relationships occurred between OWEI factors and
information employees. The only significant relationship found for noninformation employees
was between the OWEI factor Self-Control and the demographic variable length of full-time
employment.
Table 1
Statistically Significant Relationship Obtained Between Demographic Variables and OWEI
Factors
OWEI factors
Demographic variables Ambition Teamwork Dependability Self-Control
Gender
Information p<0.046
Noninformation p<0.033
Education
Information
Noninformation
Age
Information
Noninformation
Employment
Information p<0.010 p<0.030 p<0.014 p<0.039
Noninformation p<0.026
On a more detailed level, the statistically significant relationships between demographic
http://scholar.lib.vt.edu/ejournals/JITE/v41n1/brauchle.html 2/20/2007
JITE Volume 41, Number 1 - Relationships Between Selected Demographic Variables and Employee Work Ethics as... Page 6 of 12
variables and OWEI factors were as follows.
2
1. Ambition and level of education of information employees (significant at p <0.046; R -
Change = 0.047; effect size = 0.0494)
2. Ambition and length of full-time employment of information employees (significant at p
<0.010; R2-Change = 0.043; effect size = 0.049)
3. Dependability and length of full-time employment of information employees
(significant at p <0.014; R2-Change = 0.040; effect size = 0.0451)
4. Self-Control and level of education of information employees (significant at p <0.033;
R2-Change = 0.051; effect size = 0.0537)
5. Self-Control and length of full-time employment of information employees (significant
at p <0.039; R2-Change = 0.031; effect-size = 0.0343)
6. Teamwork and length of full-time employment of noninformation employees
(significant at p <0.030; R2-Change = 0.047; effect size = 0.0539)
7. Dependability and length of full-time employment of noninformation employees
(significant at p <0.026; R2-Change = 0.047; effect size = 0.0552)
Bivariate and Partial Correlations
For information employees, a positive sign before a bivariate or partial correlation
indicates a negative relationship; and a negative sign correspondingly indicates a positive
relationship. This was an effect of converting the negatively skewed distributions to positively
skewed distributions before making square root transformations. Therefore, correlations in
Tables 2-4 are negative correlations, even though they are reported as positive.
Table 2 presents statistically significant bivariate and partial correlations between level of
education, length of full-time employment, and the work attitude measure (factor) Ambition.
This table indicates that information employees with an associate's degree may be more
ambitious than employees having any other level of education. Similarly, information
employees with less than eight years of fulltime employment may be less ambitious than those
with eight or more years of full-time employment.
Table 3 presents statistically significant bivariate and partial correlations between length
of full-time employment and the work attitude measure Dependability. It points out that
information employees with less than eight years of full-time employment may be less
dependable than those with eight or more years of full-time employment.
Table 4 presents statistically significant bivariate and partial correlations between level of
education, length of full-time employment, and the work attitude measure Self-Control. This
table suggests that information employees with some graduate coursework may be less able to
demonstrate the positive work attitude attribute of self-control in the workplace than
employees having other levels of education. Similarly, information employees with less than
eight years of full-time employment may be less likely to show the positive work attitude
attribute of self-control in the workplace than those with eight or more years of full-time
employment.
Table 2
Significant Bivariate and Partial Correlations of Work Attitude Measure Ambition and Levels
of Predictor Variables (Supervisor Responses on Information Employees) (N = 205)
Correlation
Level of predictor variables Bivariate Partial
http://scholar.lib.vt.edu/ejournals/JITE/v41n1/brauchle.html 2/20/2007
JITE Volume 41, Number 1 - Relationships Between Selected Demographic Variables and Employee Work Ethics as... Page 7 of 12
Associate degree -0.182 -0.163
Less than two years of employment 0.151 0.195
2-8 years of employment 0.130 0.162
Table 3
Significant Bivariate and Partial Correlations of Work Measure Dependability and Levels of
Predictor Variables (Supervisor Responses on Information Employees) (N = 205)
Correlation
Level of predictor variables Bivariate Partial
Less than 2 years of employment 0.131 0.178
2-8 years of employment 0.143 0.167
Table 4
Significant Bivariate and Partial Correlations of Work Attitude Measure Self- Control and
Levels of Predictor Variables (Supervisor Responses on Information Employees) (N = 205)
Correlation
Level of predictor variables Bivariate Partial
Graduate work 0.169 0.151
Less than 2 years of employment 0.094 0.150
2-8 years of employment 0.117 0.152
For noninformation employees, the positive or negative sign before a bivariate or partial
correlation has the usual meaning, i.e., a positive or negative relationship, respectively.
Table 5 presents statistically significant bivariate and partial correlations between a level
of length of full-time employment and the work attitude measure Teamwork. This table
indicates that noninformation employees with less than two years of full-time employment
may be less likely to be successful in a team environment than employees with two or more
years of full-time employment.
Table 5
Significant Bivariate and Partial Correlations of Work Attitude Measure Teamwork and
Levels of Predictor Variables (Supervisor Responses on Non-Information Employees) (N =
146)
Correlation
Level of predictor variables Bivariate Partial
Less than 2 years of employment -0.173 -0.212
Table 6 presents statistically significant bivariate and partial correlations between length
of full-time employment and the work attitude measure Dependability, suggesting that
noninformation employees with less than two years of full-time employment may be less
dependable than employees with two or more years of full-time employment.
http://scholar.lib.vt.edu/ejournals/JITE/v41n1/brauchle.html 2/20/2007
JITE Volume 41, Number 1 - Relationships Between Selected Demographic Variables and Employee Work Ethics as... Page 8 of 12
Table 6
Significant Bivariate and Partial Correlations of Work Attitude Measure Dependability and
Levels of Predictor Variables (Supervisor Responses on Non-Information Employees) (N =
146)
Correlation
Level of predictor variables Bivariate Partial
Less than 2 years of employment -0.209 -0.223
Discussion
A statistically significant positive relationship was obtained between attainment of an
associate degree and the work attitude measure Ambition for information employees. Here,
employees with an associate's degree appeared to be more eager to climb the ladder of success
than information employees with any other level of education. Those employees with an
associate's degree have completed a mid-level educational degree. In an industrial
environment, the bachelor's degree may be the baseline for responsible higher supervisory
positions, except for a few departments such as research and development, where higher
degrees such as the master's degree or the doctorate are sought. Just one step behind the
bachelor's degree, it is likely that an employee with an associate's degree will have a better
chance to advance than those who have not attained this degree. Therefore, it is not surprising
that these employees are more ambitious than others. With many more educational hurdles to
overcome, employees with less than an associate's degree are not likely to be as ambitious.
Employees with a longer period of continued full-time employment may find themselves
in a better position to grow in the job and to obtain increasingly responsible positions. One
implication of continued full-time employment is that the company continues to be satisfied
with the employee's performance. This is reflected in the statistically significant negative
relationship between less than eight years of full-time employment and the work attitude
measure Ambition, implying that an employee's ambition to attain a more responsible position
increases with the length of full-time employment in the organization. It may also be that
employees with eight or more years of full-time employment have mastered one or more jobs
and may be ready for increased levels of responsibility.
A statistically significant negative relationship between workers with less than eight
years of full-time employment and the work attitude measure Dependability was observed for
information employees. Information employees with eight or more years of full-time
employment were found to be more dependable than information employees with less than
eight years of full-time employment. This finding seems logical. A longer period of continued
employment means more experience and more exposure to that particular employment
environment. Individuals with a longer period of full-time employment may develop more
highly the characteristic of dependability. On the other hand, it may be that employees who
were less dependable did not last very long and were released before they had been on the job
very long.
For information employees, a statistically significant negative relationship occurred for
those who had some graduate coursework with respect to the work attitude measure Self-
Control. This implies that information employees who completed some graduate coursework
are less able to exhibit appropriate emotional work attitude attributes than information
employees with other educational qualifications. Employees who completed some graduate
coursework may find themselves in a frustrating situation when they must work with people
having less educational background. In such a situation, frustration might be a reason for their
poor showing in the work attitude measure of Self-Control or they may have little patience
http://scholar.lib.vt.edu/ejournals/JITE/v41n1/brauchle.html 2/20/2007
JITE Volume 41, Number 1 - Relationships Between Selected Demographic Variables and Employee Work Ethics as... Page 9 of 12
with other employees who did not do graduate work but are above them in the managerial
chain of command.
There was a statistically significant negative relationship between the work attitude
measure Self-Control for information employees and those who had less than eight years of
full-time employment. Information employees with eight or more years of full-time
employment seem to be more capable of handling emotional situations in the workplace than
employees with less than eight years of full-time employment. As in the case of
Dependability, it is not clear whether long-time employment renders employees better able to
exercise self-control or whether those not capable of exercising self-control are released before
they have the opportunity to become long-term employees.
A statistically significant negative relationship was obtained between the category of less
than two years of full-time employment and the work attitude measure Teamwork for
noninformation employees. Noninformation employees with two or more years of full-time
employment are more likely to be successful in working with teams than noninformation
employees with less than two years of full-time employment. This is an important finding.
Less than two years of experience means that these employees may be rather fresh from
general or career and technical schools or from the labor market and do not have much
experience working on the job with other people. A poor score on Teamwork suggests that
schools may not have done a good job of teaching work attitude attributes related to
Teamwork.
A statistically significant negative relationship was obtained between the category less
than two years of full-time employment and the work attitude measure Dependability for
noninformation employees. Noninformation employees with two or more years of full-time
employment are more dependable than noninformation employees with less than two years of
full-time employment. This seems logical because more experienced persons are usually more
dependable than those with less experience, and those who are not dependable are quietly
released.
In this study, significant bivariate correlations varied from 0.094 to 0.209 (ignoring sign);
and significant partial correlations varied from 0.150 to 0.223 (ignoring sign). Even though
these correlation values seem small, they are not surprising. In behavioral and social sciences,
correlations of any kind seldom approach 0.5 (Cohen & Cohen, 1983).
Several earlier studies found women better than men in self-perceived work attitudes
(Petty & Hill, 1994; Hill, 1996, 1997; Hill & Rojewski, 1999; Hall, 1990, 1991; Furnham &
Muhiudeen, 1984; and Wollack, et al., 1971). This study did not find any relationship between
gender and employee (either information or noninformation) work attitudes. This suggests that
from the employers' perspective, the women employees that were studied seemed not to have
an edge over their male counterparts on any of the work attitude measures (Ambition,
Teamwork, Dependability, and Self-Control). This study supports the findings of Tang's
(1989) study in which no relationship between gender and work ethic was found.
According to Cohen and Cohen (1983), statistical significance and effect size are two
logically different features, although they are not unrelated. Statistical significance tells
whether the effect that the research study tries to discover is statistically significant or not. On
the other hand, effect size describes the magnitude of that effect. For hierarchical multiple
2 2
regression analysis, the effect size is a function of R , R -Change (Cohen & Cohen, 1983).
They suggested 0.02 as a small effect, 0.15 as a medium effect, and 0.35 as a large effect for
behavioral studies in which hierarchical multiple regression is used. In this study, effect sizes
varied from 0.0343 to 0.0552. These fall into the category of small effect size, a finding that
concurs with the small to medium effect sizes reported by Hill (1997).
http://scholar.lib.vt.edu/ejournals/JITE/v41n1/brauchle.html 2/20/2007
JITE Volume 41, Number 1 - Relationships Between Selected Demographic Variables and Employee Work Ethics ... Page 10 of 12
Conclusion
It may be thought that such small effect sizes call into question the practical significance
of the findings reported herein. On the other hand, the literature strongly argues that
employees are fired or released because of poor work attitudes, values, and habits far more
often than for other causes, even the lack of technical skills. To the extent this is true, and to
the extent that the OWEI is a valid and reliable measure of the work ethic characteristics of
Ambition, Dependability, Teamwork, and Self-Control, continued assessment of the existence
of these work attitudes and habits in the work force will yield benchmarks to measure the
strength of those characteristics, the workplace situations which seem to foster them, and the
extent to which they can be taught or nurtured. It seems important that these characteristics in
information employees continue to be studied because information employees comprise such a
large portion of the labor force and because their success will, to a significant extent, affect the
strength of the U.S. economy.
References
Aldag, R., & Brief, A. (1975). Some correlates of work values. Journal of Applied
Psychology, 60, 757-760.
Azam, M. S. (2002). A study of supervisor and employee perceptions of work attitudes
in information age manufacturing industries. Unpublished master's thesis, Illinois
State University, Normal.
Brauchle, P. E., & Azam, M. S. (2003). Construct validity of the Occupational Work
Ethic Inventory (OWEI). Manuscript submitted for publication.
Beach, D. P. (1982). A training program to improve work habits, attitudes, and values.
Journal of Epsilon Pi Tau, 8(2), 69-74.
Boatwright, J. R., & Slate, J. R. (2000). Work ethic measurement of vocational students
in Georgia. Journal of Vocational Education Research, 25(4), 503-531.
Buchholz, R. A. (1978). An empirical study of contemporary beliefs about work in
American society. Journal of Applied Psychology, 63, 219-227.
Cherrington, D. J. (1980). The work ethic: Working values and values that work. New
York: AMACOM.
Cohen, J., & Cohen, P. (1983). Applied multiple regression/correlation analysis for the
behavioral sciences (2nd ed.). Hillsdale, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates,
Publishers.
Furnham, A., & Muhiudeen, C. (1984). The protestant work ethic in Britain and
Malayasia. Journal of Social Psychology, 122, 157-161.
Goodale, J. (1973). Effects of personal background and training on work values of the
hard-core unemployed. Journal of Applied Psychology, 57, 1-9.
Hall, G. S. (1990). Work attitudes of traditional and nontraditional technical
community college students. Unpublished master's thesis. The University of
Tennessee, Knoxville.
Hall, G. S. (1991). Do older college students have different attitudes about work as
compared with younger traditional students? Tennessee Education, 21(2), 27-29.
http://scholar.lib.vt.edu/ejournals/JITE/v41n1/brauchle.html 2/20/2007